Dr. Manav Indra Singh Gill joined PAU in 1992 and has 33 years of experience in teaching, research and extension activities on Horticultural crops at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. He has extensive Administrative experience and has served on various key positions at PAU namely Dean College of Horticulture & Forestry, Dean, College of Agriculture, Additional Director of Research (Horticulture & Food Science), Additional Director of Extension Education, Director, Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI), Director Students Welfare, Registrar and Head, Department of Fruit Science. He remained Officer-in-Charge of the ‘All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on Sub-Tropical Fruits’ for 10 years and was awarded ‘Scroll of Appreciation’ in 2011 for the significant research contribution and leading the team at PAU under the project.

Based on the research work done at PAU, Dr Gill has to his credit 30 research recommendations which are included in ‘Package of Practices of Fruit Crops’ of PAU. The primary research work was on conventional and biotechnological aspects of citrus, guava, grapes and banana.  He has worked on tissue culture, genetic transformation and molecular aspects of crop improvement in these crops.  He has made significant contribution in recommendation of 8 fruit crop varieties including guava, grapes, bael and banana for commercial cultivation in the state.

Besides the research work on fruit crops, Dr Gill has handled 10 competitive Adhoc Research projects funded by International and national agencies such as Department of Biotechnology (DBT), University Grants Commission (UGC), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and The Punjab State Farmers Commission. He has published research work in journals of National and International repute. Dr Gill has extensive teaching experience and has taught UG and PG courses in Horticulture and Plant Biotechnology. Besides, he has guided 12 M.Sc. and 6 Ph.D. students having thesis work on conventional and cutting edge science technologies. He remained Chairperson, Research Committee of the Department of Fruit Science for a period 10 years.

The significant contributions made by Dr Gill, include the establishment of a new college i.e the College of Horticulture and Forestry at PAU, Ludhiana in the year 2018.  In this college, the new degree programme viz., B.Sc (Hons) Horticulture was started in the year 2019. The college and the degree programmes have recently been accredited by ICAR. Besides, he held the key responsibly for compilation and filing the application on behalf of PAU for ICAR accreditation of all the constituent colleges and degree programmes and filing the application for National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). The PAU has been successfully accredited with A+ grade for 5 years and got top ranking among state agricultural universities in NIRF consecutively for 3 years.

Recognizing the immense contributions of Dr Gill in the field of Horticulture, the Indian Academy of Horticultural Sciences (IAHS) awarded Dr Gill with the prestigious ‘Sri G.L Chadha Memorial Gold Medal’ in 2024. The PAU in 2015 awarded him with ‘Sri Hans Raj Pahwa Memoria Award’ with cash prize and a citation. He has the distinction of being selected as Fellow of the Horticultural Society of India (HSI) in 2011. Considering his significant contributions in horticulture, he has also been nominated by ICAR in various national level committees notably the member of ‘5^th Deans Committee’ for UG curriculum revision of horticulture, member of Peer Review Team’ (PRT) for accreditation of degree programmes and colleges at national level. He has remained the member of Punjab State council for Agricultural Education (PSCAE) of Punjab Government for accreditation of universities/Institutes offering B.Sc Agriculture degree in the state.

Dr Gill is recipient of ‘Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship’ and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of Nottingham, UK. for 1 year. Later, he was also a ‘Visiting Scientist’ and worked at State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (SABC), Perth-West Australia for 5 months. For the academic pursuits, he has widely travelled across the world. The prominent countries visited by Dr Gill include USA, UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore.